Blood of the Cybermen – the second of four free Doctor Who games – will be released this Saturday on the BBC website. With the first game, City of the Daleks, the BBC did a pre-release a couple of days early so check their site if you want to see if this will again be the case.

The Adventure Games – Blood of the Cybermen

“The Doctor and Amy materialize in the Arctic – where members of a survey team are turning from flesh to metal and digging something sinister from under the ice that’s been waiting thousands of years – an army of Cybermen!

This is your chance to be the Doctor. Are you ready for the challenge?”

The second Adventure Game will be free to download from the official site, on Saturday, 26 June

The games are free to UK residents, those outside the UK will have to purchase the episodic titles next month – or alternatively use a UK proxy address to ask their ISP and make it look like they are in the UK…

The game designers have mentioned that they are bringing back an adversary of the Doctor not seen since the 4th Doctor… Although they haven’t said so, the trailer and concept art make it clear that this means Cybermats.

The screenshots and concept are also reveal Cybermen and partially converted Cyber-humans – so will this be (yet another) rebirth for the Cybus Cybermen in our universe? Quite possibly so – the design of the Cybermen in this story is basically that of the Cybus Cybermen, but the chest logo has been changed from the “C” to a stylised Cyberhead.

An abandoned Arctic research centre… an ancient relic… an off-screen terror – the classic ingredients of a Doctor Who episode. Only this time you are the Doctor. Episode two of the Doctor Who: The Adventure Games has today been unveiled by the BBC – and the good news is fans won’t have to wait long to get their hands on it.

The game will be available to download from the Doctor Who website this Saturday (26th June 2010), immediately after the thrilling TV series finale.

‘Blood of the Cybermen’ has been executively produced by Steven Moffat, stars Matt Smith and Karen Gillan, has been written by Phil Ford, and is developed by BBC Wales and Sumo Digital.

The games have been designed to complement the TV series, giving players the opportunity to finally ‘be’ the Doctor. The first episode ‘City of the Daleks’ received over 525,000 download requests in its first 12 days.

“Blood of the Cybermen is classic ‘Who,” says Phil Ford, Writer, Blood of the Cybermen, Doctor Who Waters of Mars and The Sarah Jane Adventures. “From the intriguing title, through the pre-credits intro to the mystery surrounding the Arctic base, this is everything you expect from a TV episode – only this time you control the action. It’s an epic story, and one we could only tell in a computer game. We’ve ambitious sets, a thrill-a-minute narrative, and we re-introduce a Doctor Who adversary not seen since the Tom Baker era.”

But perhaps the single most interesting revelation about the Cybermen (or at least the Cybus versions) is that we found out what is inside a Cyber-helmet.

It wasn’t only The Pandorica opening during this episode…

The skull beneath the helmet was a very nice touch. Perhaps it might have been better still with some wires and circuitry embedded into the skull and so on, but this was a great scene. What next for the Cybermen…

Less impressive than the independently functioning Cyberhead, but interesting never the less, The Pandorica Opens also revealed the ability of Cyber-Arms to function away from the rest of their Cyber-bodies. I was half expecting to see a dismembered arm crawling around the screen in the style of “Thing” from the Addams Family (perhaps we’ll see that in a future episode…) – instead we got something a little closer to the 9th Doctor’s fight with the Auton arm from “Rose”, but with a couple of extra twists. Firstly, the Cyber-Arm’s gun was still working until the Doctor and the trusty sonic screwdriver managed to put it out of action…

But just when it looked like it might be finally rendered safe the Doctor’s warning that the arm could be deceptive and tricky was proved correct…

Quite a nice touch – and good to see that even a single dismembered Cyberman can still be a major threat. After their seemingly easy defeat at the suckers of the Daleks in Army of Ghosts / Doomsday and then their rather less than impressive performance in 1851 in The Next Doctor, it is good to see the Cybermen being portrayed as a force to be reckoned with…

+++We++Will++Survive+++

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